


glass vase

by kaeneuss, pearypi_e



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25887262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeneuss/pseuds/kaeneuss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypi_e/pseuds/pearypi_e
Summary: Clouds of blood are thicker than fog.
Relationships: Ophelia Phamrsolone/Kirschtaria Wodime
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	glass vase

**Author's Note:**

> edit: well it's been 3/4 months since i've posted this and uhhhhh
> 
> if you're reading this fic don't judge i can do better now i sw
> 
> \- tara

Ophelia’s responsibility, first and foremost, was to her family. 

The Clock Tower was a ruthless, cold place, but it was the center of modern magical activity, and in it, one’s family name was everything. ‘Ophelia’ was just an attachment- a tool, to single her out among her cousins and aunts and uncles. 

After all, it was her family that had given her everything- her knowledge, her dreams, her purpose--

Her Eye.

Her Eye carried the dreams of the Phamrsolone family. Implanted through a series of state-of-the-art surgical procedures, designed to make her a first-rate magus by any means necessary. To decide one’s future was its ability - to view and cull unwanted possibilities, related to any object or existence. 

How ironic it was, that the Eye that changed fate would be the thing that sealed her own.

She has no regrets. 

Not about Mashu, not about her family, and definitely not about Kirschtaria. She is the heir to the Phamrsolone family, and she does not bother with empty indulgences. Love, lust, desire, _friendship_ ; the indulgence of the floating world - none of it would lie on the path she walked. 

She is subpar, trying to be special. She is dead weight. She is a _burden._

She is a burden, with a glittering jewel and title tacked on. This is a fact.

After all, it was that Eye that had given her everything- her family’s knowledge, her family’s dreams, her family’s purpose, and her own meaning.

She held no grudge against her family for what they took from her- she still doesn’t. But she knows exactly what it was. She just- she just knows it was a lot.

On the way to a graveyard, her heels don’t make a sound against the cheap carpeting of the bus. Kirschtaria sits next to her, staring aimlessly out of a smudged glass window. 

It is daytime. No stars are in sight.

\---

The sky is blue at Marisbury’s funeral.

This made her happy. The deep, endless stretch of blue reminds her of Kirschtaria’s eyes- not that she spends much time thinking about his eyes, mind you, but it’s comforting nonetheless. 

People gather around the graveyard, furtive eyes glancing about, wondering, ‘ _What do I stand to gain from this? What can I take?_ ’

Here, she realizes that some people truly are beyond her understanding. Boredom will never take a backseat to every thought laced with it - selfish and arrogant and so _infuriatingly_ shallow, her blood boils hotter than ever. Death is a silly thing, yes, but she wonders why some take it so lightly. How the lonely figure of those who lost someone precious to them could ever look anything but pitiable. 

By Marisbury’s gravestone, there is a lone vase of flowers. The _Agapanthus_ , Lily of the Nile, placed at funerals in Greek tradition--

She detests those who watched the grieving as if their emotions were nothing, as if their love amounted to just feathers fluttering away at a single breath of wind. She detests those who stare disinterestedly, as if they were watching a movie instead of the figures of people collapsing under their own loneliness. She detests-

Most of all, perhaps, she hates herself. This is the way karma goes, after all - to someone like her, a failure, a disappointment, a burden. For someone selfish and unthinking and lazy.

The air tastes different.

Magi are hypocrites at heart. Mystery was, by nature, something unknown, and yet they still chose to slavishly chase knowledge of its secrets, all while speaking of the contempt they held for the modern world's science. They detest those who see magecraft as a tool for their own ends, and yet every hour is spent toiling over the pursuit of a selfish Truth. They throw it all to the wind- the humanity that the Barthomeloi take pride in, the elegance that the Edelfelt flaunt. She says she is proud to be one, but is she, really?

They have no idea of what they have taken from themselves, from the bloodlines that they nurture by being careful not to marry _too_ many cousins, and it is a lot.

There is a blistering moment where Ophelia thinks, _‘This world isn’t worth it, so why are we fighting to save humanity if it was just going to destroy itself eventually?’_ and in that moment she hates herself for ever thinking that she was capable of accomplishing anything, hates herself for thinking something like that even in the first place that Marisbury had died in his pursuit to save the world, hates herself for ever believing that she wasn’t a burden.

\---

Soon enough, she finds her answer.

She’s sipping black tea (the treasured gift) with Pepe, enjoying the Bienenstich cake that she had baked to pass the time. He's always given her good advice, so she sets her teacup down upon the tablecloth and asks him. 

“Is it worth it... Well, is the Human Order truly worth saving?” 

Pepe shrugs his shoulders and glances out the window. 

“I’m not quite sure. When you think of humanity, what do you picture?” 

His silver spoon never hits the sides of his cup. His cake crumbs never fall on his lap. His hand never shakes, even as he moves to pour her tea.

She doesn’t say a thing.

He smiles at her and gestures to the rest of the lounge, drawing her attention to the staff briskly going about their chores. 

“Humanity is only terrible when viewed as a whole. In fact, wanting to save humanity as a whole and yet not a single person was probably where Marisbury went wrong.

Individuals- well, most individuals are cowardly and selfish. Most of them would prefer to die a painful death, just for the sake of never admitting their own faults. But if you look a little closer, pay a little more attention…”

His eye strays to Mashu. She’s staring out of the window, looking into a blizzard. No stars are in sight.

“Some of them can _shine_.”

\---

Kirschtaria’s working at his desk. 

He’s in his room, and the lights are on. It’s silent, save for the quiet hum of the air conditioner’s fan whirring away and the scratch of his pencil against paper as he finishes the last few revisions of an essay on the influence of Greek mythology on the modern world. He looks back over the stack of pages, checking over one last time to see if there are any mistakes (There are none. As expected of Kirschtaria Wodime.), and after finding none, he leans back in his chair with a small sigh.

The air is cold against his skin. A shiver (from fatigue, from the chill, he doesn’t know) crawls against the back of his mind and suddenly he’s so tired, so heavy, so aching and just a little hungry, that he thinks he might just collapse. He briefly wonders how long he’d been hunched over that desk, writing sentence after sentence, before a knock cuts through the silence of his room.

And because Kirschtaria Wodime does not rest, he gets up, pads across the room, and reaches for the doorknob.

It clicks open. The visitor turns out to be Ophelia, standing in front of him with a book clutched in hand. She smiles at him, the kind carefully tuned to show a sort of familiarity, yet not allowing anyone to draw near. 

(It’s the kind he’s seen so often from magi. Of course, why would she be any different?)

“...What do you need me for?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Kirschtaria realizes the curt tone he inadvertently took with her, and he internally punches himself for being so rude to a fellow member of Team A. But Ophelia doesn’t seem to mind; she merely keeps smiling that same distant smile and offers the book she’d been holding.

A copy of _Orpheus and Eurydice_. _How strange_ , Kirschtaria thinks to himself.

“This is for you, Kir- Lord Kirschtaria. I saw this earlier, and I remembered that you were working on an essay about Greek mythology, so I thought it would be helpful to use something like this as a reference.”

“...I already finished the essay.” The words fall out of his mouth before he can process the fact that her chosen gift is _Orpheus and Eurydice_ , of all things.

It didn’t have to be a love story.

Then again, it didn’t have to be a tragedy, either.

“Oh. um…” She suddenly looks lost, as if she no longer knows why she came in the first place.

“No, don’t worry. I’ll keep it.” A sudden chuckle escapes his lips, so quick that he doesn’t have the wits to suppress it.

She holds it out again, rather awkwardly, and he takes it, still smiling.

Her face blurs, a bit. 

He’s still smiling.

The world seems to turn upside down--

\---

“Doctor, what’s wrong with Lord Kirschtaria?”

Now, she’s in the infirmary. Kirschtaria’s unconscious body is resting on one of the beds. She’s staring Doctor Romani in the eyes, cerulean piercing into emerald. She can’t stop her hands from fidgeting, but this is so much more important, so she manages not to be embarrassed.

Despite the staff’s best efforts, the infirmary still looked sterile and lifeless (a place filled with death, just like that graveyard--) and she makes an effort not to gag from the oppressive smell of chemicals and antiseptic. 

“...You aren’t aware?” he replies, a bit of incredulity in his voice.

“What are you talking about?” She frowns. Lack of knowledge was a weakness, one that had to be rectified immediately.

He sighs and scratches the back of his head. 

“Well… It’s not really my place to tell you, y’know?” he says, helplessly.

A glass vase of Agapanthus flowers sits by his bedside, like they did at Marisbury’s funeral. Flowers of death, beautiful all the same. This particular bunch is blue, the same shade of blue as the sky, and...

\---

“Whatever you don’t tell her now will hurt her more later, you know.” Da Vinci warns, leaning against the cold infirmary sink, after Wodime’s been carted off to his room and Ophelia’s gone to wait by his side.

She gives him a disapproving look. “Didn’t you study these kinds of things? I expect better, Romani.”

He runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know. Telling her myself seems wrong,” he says, sitting down in the infirmary’s lone plastic chair and placing his head in his hands. “It’s something that’s probably really personal to him, y’know? If he never told Ophelia himself, I don’t think it’s my place to say anything about it.”

Da Vinci blinks, a little surprised. It was somewhat rare to hear something that resembled social awareness from Romani, after all. 

“Hm, so you do have some tact after all! You’re learning, Romani!” She grins and starts elbowing him in the side. 

“Ow! Hey, stop that, Leona!”

\--

It’s dark. It’s dark, and it’s cold, and it’s heavy. 

It’s like drowning and living his entire life again through snapshots, through the lens of a camera, as if there was a reporter photographing moments scattered throughout the years. 

Autumn in Great Britain, leaves falling in spirals of red, yellow, and orange, tossed by the breeze. Summer in Greece, watching the waves crash against the shoreline and smelling the scent of salt and grass. Spring in Japan, seeing cherry blossoms bloom as they stain the world with pink and letting the sun sink into his bones. Winter in Russia, huddled in a heavy coat, trudging through knee high snow and hoping he doesn’t freeze to death.

It’s like falling, falling, falling, into shadow and the depths of the ocean, blood drifting away into the river where he fell after he was shot. The cold dulls the pain, just a little bit, and crimson bubbles away into the stream like clouds. Like mist. Like-

Like death.

It’s cold.

He opens his eyes.

Bright, glaring lights hit his front. The smell of disinfectant punches him in the nose like a boxer’s glove, harsh to the point where he can’t help but scrunch up his face in an expression of disgust. For a moment, he sits up and has to look around and remember where he is, has to remember the essay and the book and Ophelia and falling, falling, falling-

A sharp pain echoes in his temples, and he massages the bridge of his nose to stop the incoming headache. He looks around again. There, in a glass vase, sit a bundle of Agapanthus flowers. Probably an ironic gift from Beryl, knowing him. The thought makes him chuckle lightly to himself; a small thing, but something at least a little familiar and a little caustic. But that was Beryl, was it not?

His gaze focuses on Ophelia.

She’s sleeping, her face pressed against her arms curled on the edge of the mattress. 

How long has she been there? 

Slowly, her eyes flutter open. She startles at the sight of his face. Quickly, she lifts her head from where it was squished against her arms and dusts herself off. “Lord Kirschtaria,” she starts, unsure. “I… didn’t expect you to wake up so soon…”

He smiles, but he can’t laugh. _She knows_ , he thinks, and even if she doesn’t, he will have to tell her one way or another. Another chink in his armor, another weakness to exploit.

An empty silence echoes. 

“Why did you come to visit me?” 

Suddenly, the room seems a few degrees cooler.

(Cold, like the river he fell into by chance after being shot by the assassins. Cold, like the nigh constant snowfall around Chaldea. Cold, like Kirschtaria himself - contained, repressed, misaligned. A magus, as much as he hates to admit it.

It’s cold, and he shivers. Again.)

“It was my duty as a fellow member of Team A,” Ophelia replies, getting her bearings. She is inscrutable once again, wearing the practiced smile with detached, brusque eyes.

 _Liar_ , a part of him whispers.

He laughs.

The sound is cold and harsh, unlike the chuckles that had slipped out the day he had finished the essay, because they _both_ know that what she says is--

_Liar._

Her eyes are filled with emotion once again, but he can’t get a chance to stare into blue before she casts them down to the floor.

"....Why do you care for me?" 

His second question cuts through the air like a knife through flesh. 

He already knew why she had come to visit him. He had known ever since she had gifted him that volume- _Orpheus and Eurydice_. A love story. (A tragedy.)

This was what he had been meaning to ask. 

The question rings in Ophelia's eardrums, and without really noticing, the blood rushes to her face and ears like wildfire. She cannot help but glance away, as if to try and run from the honesty that his eyes demand.

But regardless, he sits there, and he watches her with the gaze of a man with the weight of the world on his back, praying for a release from that burden, and she cannot help but fear that she will be stacking more bricks onto his shoulders. This is perhaps the first time he feels as if he's really seeing her, something pounding in his ears as he watches her lips pull up in a rueful smile. He notices he is shaking.

(Kirschtaria Wodime does not love. Kirschtaria Wodime is the true heir to the Animusphere family, heads of the Clock Tower’s Astromancy Department. Kirschtaria Wodime is a stone-cold aristocrat, leader of Chaldea’s prized A-Team--)

Her hand catches his wrist, and he finds that her skin is not, in fact, cold to the touch; he cannot help but feel surprised by the softness of her palm and its fingers, the stickiness of her skin, how absolutely _real_ she feels.

“Because you are kind.”

(No, he is not. He is Kirschtaria Wodime. Kirschtaria Wodime is not kind, he is not gentle, he shuns such worldly affairs-)

Her voice continues, hesitant though it may be.

“You are strong. You are intelligent and willful, and resolute in your ideals.”

_Why? Liar--_

“You are a good person.”

Her words hurt beyond belief - like a chisel drove into his chest, something chipping away like old paint inside his ribs, a lightning-sharp lance of pain. She traces her finger, feather light, against his palm, and somehow there is something just so forgiving and warm about it he struggles not to drown in it, sucks in a breath silently and hopes that she can’t feel the shaking of his body.

Kirschtaria Wodime can shoulder any burden.

_Why?_

He feels like he’s being suffocated- like he’s drowning, sinking to the bottom of the dark, cold river. It’s dead weight, pushing him down, down, down--

Blood floats away in crimson clouds, covering the sky, thicker than water, thicker than fog.

No stars are in sight.

And yet, she still clutches onto his wrist, as if letting go would mean the world would break and all their effort would be for naught and-

She is so real and so human and so far beyond his reach he feels himself choke on his own air.

(She is nothing he once thought she was.)

_Why?_

Here is where Kirschtaria Wodime learns, learns of karma and flowers of love and not-love’s and I-cannot’s and _Orpheus and Eurydice_ -

_(It didn’t have to be a love story._

_Then again, it didn’t have to be a tragedy, either.)_

And she raises a hand to touch his cheek and she _smiles._ Something a little lonely, something a little sad, something a little gentle and uncertain and graceful. 

It pulls him out of the sweet ignorance of the river, again to face the clear blue sky, clouded by blood and tears.

No stars are in sight.

_Kirschtaria Wodime does not love._

“Kirschtaria Wodime cannot love.”

It takes him a moment to realize he’s spoken that out loud.

To do so would be to deny everything Marisbury had taught him, to deny his own life’s purpose--

_Fight for humanity, and yet not a single person._

He tries to look out of the window, and his gaze fixes on the glass vase of Agapanthus flowers- Marisbury’s death.

Flowers of love.

The only way to embrace love is through death. Was that what they meant?

He laughs.

“It is foolish for you to love me. Inevitably, my death will come, and it will come soon. I presume you were wondering why I had collapsed? My magic circuits are ruptured. I have 2 years, at most.”

Every fact weighs her down, squeezing out tears and clouding the clear blue sky with blood. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Do not be sorry.”

 _Love shouldn’t be wrong,_ he thinks.

“A good person would never be cruel to somebody who loved them.”

But he’s already been cruel, hasn’t he? He’s weighed her down to the bottom of the river, clouded her sky with blood and tears. 

It sits with him, like an unopened book. 

What is there to know?

Some time later, he realizes that Ophelia has left. He cannot blame her

He glances out of the window towards the sky, hoping for a familiar visage.

No stars are in sight.

He sinks down into his bed.

Suddenly, his eyes widen. 

“I never did quite get to reading that book, did I?” he mumbles, hastily twisting himself around, foraging for the leather-bound novel - 

\---

_Orpheus was a musician._

_Son of Apollo, gifted a lyre by his father, and played melodies so beautiful that not only people but the animals, the plants, and even the wind would stop to listen. Neither beast nor enemy nor nature itself could resist his lull of his lyre, for so startlingly lovely it was._

_But he was merely human, after all; and as such, he fell in love. A woman named Eurydice, a unique sort of beauty - from the moment he lay eyes upon her, his heart was smitten, and soon his harmonies turned from hymns to ballads. He sang of his love for her, of the grace and elegance of the fair lady that had stolen away his heart._

_She responded to his feelings in kind, as no creature in heaven or in hell could refuse the melody Orpheus played, and the two were soon to be wed._

_Orpheus rejoiced. Why would he not? After all, the woman he adored was within his grasp, finally. And so when Eurydice desired to go play in the forest on the day of their wedding, he did not refuse - in his elation, he had forgotten of the omen given by Hymen, god of marriage ceremonies, that their perfection would not last._

_And last it did not - as Eurydice danced among the flowers, with the many nymphs of the forest, she trod upon a snake. It hissed, and its fangs buried themselves into her ankle. She had no time to say goodbye, no time to voice her final regrets - Eurydice had perished in the span of a second, none to witness her dying breath._

_Orpheus, upon finding out that his wife had passed, let forth a cry of grief with his lyre, so that the whole world would mourn the death of Eurydice, poor Eurydice, the love of his life. Every living and nonliving being - the grass, the rocks, the trees, men and gods, was moved to tears by his music. And yet, despite the weeping of all beings on the earth and heavens alike, Orpheus knew that it would not bring back Eurydice. He was not yet satisfied._

_Orpheus resolved himself to descend to the realm of Hades, god of death and the underworld. With the protection of the gods, he passed by spectres and souls of people forgotten, and they too wept at the sound of his mournful lyre. Charon, ferryman of the river Styx, did not ask of a coin from Orpheus - merely a strum of his instrument, and he was allowed to pass over to the castle where Hades resided._

_Charming even Cerberus, guardian of the underworld, Orpheus stood before Hades and Persephone, asking of but one thing - Eurydice’s life. At first, Hades refused - what right did he, a mere mortal, have to demand authority over life and death? But even Hades, king of hell, faltered before the sorrowful song that Orpheus crooned._

_And so, Hades gave in. He would allow Eurydice’s soul to return to the overworld - but on one condition. Orpheus, on his journey back, could not glance behind him until they both had reached the world above. If he did so, Eurydice would disappear back to Hades forevermore. Orpheus agreed, of course, for this was the only chance he would have to bring back his beloved. After all, not peeking over his back would be a simple task, would it not?_

_Delighted by how easy the condition appeared to be, Orpheus gratefully thanked Hades and left back to ascend to the upper world. But it proved to be a much more difficult task than he had imagined - it was difficult to hear Eurydice’s footsteps, so Orpheus grew anxious, wondering if perhaps Hades had tricked him. He walked, through the hell he had passed in order to see her once more, this time to bring her back. He walked, back across the river Styx and past the forgotten ones._

_But Orpheus had little faith, and this was his downfall - only a few steps from the exit, he glanced back to see if it was truly his wife following behind, or if it was just a false spirit that Hades had planted to trick him into leaving his love behind. And it truly was Eurydice - to see her face again brought him great happiness, but sudden horror as he now understood that he had failed, failed, failed, and she was stolen away from him once more._

_Struck by despair after losing his beloved not once, but twice, Orpheus attempted to go back to Hades - but he could not, for no living man could visit the underworld twice while breath was still in his body. In grief, Orpheus played a song of death, begging that someone would kill him so that he would be reunited with Eurydice. His wish was granted, but by who? These facts were lost to the ages, and even now, the circumstances of Orpheus’s death remain a mystery._

_Did Orpheus ever truly die?_

_Did Orpheus even exist?_

_Did Orpheus matter, in the grand scheme of things?_

\--

Soon enough, Kirschtaria finds his answer.

To have been born is to claim an irrevocable right to live a fulfilling life. To have lived and loved, to have drawn breath… that is what makes one matter. Whether he was of consequence or not does not determine his worth, for in the floating world of love, hate, and indulgence, consequence does not exist.

He goes outside one last time, to see the sky. 

It is filled with glittering stars, clear as if no blood had stained them.


End file.
